San Francisco drug crisis laid bare

Some can’t move. Others aren’t even conscious. Those that are have lost the capacity to respond to their surroundings. A TikTok video has captured the appalling conditions on the streets of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, showcasing the city’s struggle with drug addiction, homelessness, and incompetent leadership. Sights that include drug addicts completely detached from reality roaming or sprawled unconscious in the streets have moved from mere nuisance to an existential crisis for the city. Residents who run the gauntlet of San Francisco’s diverse population face assault, robbery, rape, even death, and that’s if they manage to avoid the used needles littering the sidewalk. But increasingly, those residents have nowhere to go. Businesses are fleeing the city at an alarming rate, costing the city $200 million a year in lost revenue. Most analysts agree that the city is in a death spiral, but few have any suggestions on how to stop the bleeding. Mayor London Breed has no answers, but budget cuts to the police probably aren’t the way forward.